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Neal’s Yard, aka “The Cathedral of Cheese”

We always seem to be on a “quest” to find something or other when on vacation!

Not too long ago we made our first trip to England, renting an apartment in London for a week.

Being long time fans/customers of Les Amis du Fromage & Benton Bros. here in Vancouver, we knew about and had tasted some of the cheeses they bring in from Neal’s Yardin London.

Sooo….the mission; to find Neal’s Yard. There are two locations, one in CoventGardenand the other at Borough Market. Off to Covent Garden we go. As usual we have no map, just a general address. These quests often turn out to be more challenging than you can imagine. Finally, after marching uphill for some time past God knows what (because when on a quest you only have one thing in mind), we find the Holy Grail of cheeses.

There is nothing like this in Vancouver! Cheeses stacked up almost to the ceiling, samples being provided off the end of a knife which seems a lot more fun than those little pieces of paper we get samples on here. They had a person stationed outside on the street giving out samples. Being able to taste and buy artisanal English cheeses, made by local farmers, what a wonderful treat! Cheeses with names like “Lancashire Poacher” & “Isle of Mull”. Click here to check out Neal’s Yard website.

We discovered that some of the cheeses were available at Waitrose market not far from where we were staying. Oh boy…I can’t remember eating that much cheese in a week in my lifetime! There were cheese omelets, cheese and salad for a quick dinner, cheese and toast for breakfast. At the end of the week, there were some uneaten cheeses that we had to abandon, because we could not take them with us. Sad! Hopefully the owner of the apartment enjoyed them. No doubt, they would have been confiscated by security at Heathrow anyway!